Google Inc. will pull the plug on Dodgeball, cease development of its microblogging service Jaiku and slash roughly 100 jobs as it streamlines its operations in a struggling economy.An SMS-based, location-based service, Dodgeball gained traction in the early days of mobile social networks and...
The world's leading handset and chipset makers - Nokia Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. - head to court today to resolve disagreements over their contractual relationship in a case that may have wide repercussions for the wireless industry.Potentially at stake is the nature of obligations...
One hesitates returning to the blame-game that engulfed and sullied the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and other sinister storms of 2005, because - despite failures under former director Michael Brown and others in the Bush administration - the...
Mobile entertainment community Limbo inked a year-long deal with Virgin Mobile USA Inc. to offer mobile promotions to customers.Limbo, a 2-year-old startup headed by founders of the mobile marketing firm Enpocket, will stage monthly and quarterly promotions through text-message blasts and on the VirginXL...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks...
The Federal Communications Commission took another step toward reform of the universal service fund, while further leaving in limbo a highly controversial effort by Chairman Kevin Martin to order a temporary cap on government subsidies largely tapped for deployment of wireless services in rural...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks...
Alvin invasion via voicetonesWho wouldn't jump at the chance to sound like a Chipmunk without the aid of helium? 20th Century Fox is promoting its forthcoming "Alvin and The Chipmunks" movie with its "Munk Yourself" campaign. The interactive campaign allows users to create their...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our Monday feature, Analyst Angle. We've collected a group of the industry's leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Jupiter Research's Julie Ask, Current Analysis'...
Mobile marketing startup Limbo 41414 pocketed $8 million in a financing round led by Azure Capital Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and New Enterprise Associates.The Burlingame, Calif.-based firm said it will use the cash to expand on its mobile and online entertainment services for both...
Iraq has scrapped its long-delayed cellular auction and instead decided to license the three national wireless carriers in June under an arrangement calling for revenue-sharing and an upfront cash payment of at least $250 million from each operator, according to Iraqi government and industry...
Iraq has scrapped its long-delayed cellular auction and instead decided to license the three national mobile phone carriers in June under an arrangement calling for revenue-sharing and an upfront cash payment of at least $250 million from each operator, according to Iraqi government and...
Hedge*hog*ing v. Interrupting conversations in an office environment by poking your head over the top of the cube.You gotta love Nokia. Here is a company that is handily the largest cellphone maker in the world, yet it still has the nerve to bring the...
Hello! And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR Wireless News to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the...
The Bush administration shows signs of internal division over a $1 billion public-safety wireless interoperability grant program, with implementation delays undercutting post-9/11efforts to improve communications among first responders and attracting increased oversight by Congress. The House Homeland Security Committee wants the administration to explain...
At the 3GSM World Congress, as at other major industry confabs, there are gadgets galore. And then there are the market-based strategies and financial plans behind them. Attempting to translate one into the other-reading the gadgets' features for clues to a vendor's strategies or...
The House Homeland Security Committee asked the Bush administration to explain why implementation of a $1 billion public-safety wireless interoperability grant program continues to be delayed, with lawmakers expressing particular concern about Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's admission that his department and the Commerce...
WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court rejected a request by Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. to stay its reversal of a Federal Communications Commission decision pre-empting state regulation of line-items on mobile phone bills. The move denies industry's attempt to keep the 11th Circuit's...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is moving closer to deciding whether to seek a rehearing or possibly a Supreme Court review of a federal appeals court's rejection of rules that pre-empt states from regulating certain line items on consumers' monthly bills, according to a top...
WASHINGTON—A bill outlawing deceptive tactics by data brokers to acquire and sell cell phone records may soon get a vote on the House floor after mysteriously being pulled from a scheduled vote in early May. The possible breakthrough follows a meeting between House Commerce...
Money continued to pour into the mobile marketing space last week as VeriSign Inc. inked an agreement to shell out $250 million in cash for wireless messaging and content services provider m-Qube Inc. M-Qube powers mobile storefronts and marketing campaigns for media companies and...
SAN MATEO, Calif.—Three former executives from mobile marketing company Enpocket have teamed to launch a "reverse auction" service for wireless users. Limbo 41414 unveiled a beta site that rewards users who makes the lowest offer via text message for an item that no other...
WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission officials last week refused to discuss whether they were prodded by cellular lobbyists to get involved in brain-cancer lawsuits, the first time to date the agency is believed to have weighed in on civil health litigation. On Nov. 21, the FCC...
WASHINGTON-North Carolina's potentially precedent-setting telecom tower standard has gone into effect, despite objections from the National Association of Tower Erectors to a fall-protection provision that it says is too harsh for small businesses. NATE tried to have the requirement changed by the state legislature,...
